Observing the Potter Phenomenon

"No phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon" Niels Bohr.

Wikipedia defines a phenomenon as "an observable event, or quite literally, something that can be seen". In that case, there is no doubt that Harry Potter is a phenomenon; the evidence is everywhere. The incredible commercial success of the books and the movies, the increase literacy among young kids, the number of books and websites analyzing each and every detail of the books, and the fact that JK Rowling is richer than the queen all prove it.

Being a Harry Potter fan myself, I don't need all those facts to tell me Harry Potter is a phenomenal series and JK Rowling is a phenomenal writer. I just have to look at the observable events around me:

1. The baskets of dirty laundry piling up because I've neglected them in my haste to finish the last Harry Potter book.
2. The zits on my forehead and bags under my eyes from too many late nights staying up to finish the last Harry Potter book.
3. The fact that mere possession of the last Harry Potter book is enough to get strangers to come up and talk to me and ask me how the book ends (I never tell).
4. The number of times I've blogged about Harry Potter in the last month (five, including this one, and sometime soon I'll probably do yet another Harry-related post, this time on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog)
5. The unusual increase in the number of little boys I've seen walking around with Harry Potter glasses, capes and neckties, even though Halloween is over three months away.
6. The fact that my 3-year-old sons know who Harry Potter is.
7. The fact that my parents know who Harry Potter is.
   

Harry Potter has definitely left a mark (lightning-shaped, of course) on this household. I've enjoyed each and every one of the seven Harry Potter books (I have to say the seventh is the best of all) and I look forward to enjoying them again and again, by myself and later on with my children.

For more phenomena, click here.